It has been almost a month now since the mid-term elections. I hope by now you’ve realized that the Democrats didn’t win, the Republicans lost. There is a difference.
The Republicans were doing it wrong, but that doesn’t mean the Democrats were given carte blanche by the voters, even this registered Democrat. I don’t want to see our taxes sky rocket. I don’t want to see all the time, effort and lives invested in Iraq wasted.
I do want to see civil liberties respected. I do want to see an end to corruption, scandals and favoritism in Washington and Corporate America. I want to see us get out of Iraq, but as gracefully as possible. Let us not leave that country in worse shape than when we found it.
As a party, the Democrats have less than two years to demonstrate to the American public that they can get their acts together and that they can govern better than the Republicans. It can’t be business as usual or all of those hard fought battles will have been for not and there will be another Republican in the White House come 2008. The party has to focus. They need to understand what issues the voting public REALLY cares about and address those issues.
Here’s my short list:
- Protection of Civil Liberties. If law enforcement wants to listen to my conversations, they’d be bored to tears, but they better have a convinced a judge that it is a worthwhile effort and obtained a warrant.
- Better Education. No Child Left Behind is a disaster. The intention of the legislation was valid, but the outcome has sucked the creativity out of our education system and left teachers teaching to a test. And by the way, if Washington wants to mandate something and impose their will on The States, they had better be willing to pay for that mandate.
- Lower healthcare costs. With the explosion of HMO’s Big Business has taken over healthcare. Gone are the days when a doctor actually had time to TALK with patients. Too many people can’t afford decent preventive healthcare which drives the cost up for everyone. I don’t pretend to know the answer here, but something has to be done.
Come on Democrats, FOCUS. Let’s make a difference when it really counts
